4 Times Elizabeth Wanted to Pack It In
by Cassie Valentine
Summary: Just what the title says. 4 times during the Atlantis expedition that Elizabeth wanted to pack it in and go home. And one time she didn't.


Title: 4 Times Elizabeth Wanted to Pack It In And 1 Time She Didn't.

first time Elizabeth Weir considered packing it all in was before they had even made it to Atlantis. They had been in the arctic for weeks at this point and she had been sick for all of them. She didn't have anything serious, just a cold that was continually dragging on. She knew that what she really needed was a warm bath, a nice bowl of soup and real bed to snuggle up in for a few days. Instead, she had lukewarm showers, whatever the US Air Force tried to pass off as soup and a mattress that did little to disguise the fact that she was bunked down on Air Force issue metal bunk beds with a heavy duty down sleeping bag to keep the chill away.

She also needed 20 minutes away from one Doctor Rodney McKay, but she knew that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Weir lay in bed one night, mentally wording her resignation, but all she could come up with was  
Dear General O'Neill,  
As much as I love freezing all the time, I'm sick of being tired and tired of being sick, so I'm going home. Good luck,  
Elizabeth.

She chuckled to herself as she thought about how ridiculous the letter was and she was very glad that there was no one else bunking down with her yet. That was something else she would love to get rid of: her room mate. She hadn't had a room mate since she finished her first degree, deciding that if she really was going to continue her education, a small, quiet apartment was a must. Elizabeth snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag, remembering how cozy, if run down, her first little place was when she heard a knock on the door frame and looked up to see Daniel sticking his head in the door.

"I think we're onto something," he said, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb.

"I'll be right there," she said, tossing the flap of the sleeping back to the side and sliding into her boots before pulling her fleece jacket back on. Her excitement for the mission immediately returned and she couldn't follow Daniel fast enough. She also realized that the little voice that kept saying 'ohhhh maybe this time!' was back again and she liked hearing it.

Maybe she could wait to send that letter for one more day.

hadn't even been in Atlantis for 12 hours when she was starting to consider packing it in. Of course this time she'd be packing it in to save the lives of everyone in the expedition as well as the refugees John Sheppard had brought through the worm hole, the Athosians. Atlantis was being taken over by the ocean as more and more of the shield failed because of them. They had brought the city back to life, but were managing to kill it in the same breath.

It wasn't fair, she told herself as she looked around her, taking in the high ceilings and stained glass. All this had been waiting for them to find and now they were going to loose it before they even really got to look around. Part of her wanted to throw a good old fashioned temper tantrum, but she knew that that wouldn't get any of them anywhere. She also had a feeling that if any of them survived this, a tantrum wouldn't project the image of a very stable, capable leader.

The city shuddered again and she watched as Sheppard pulled a young boy from the group of Athosians, dragging him up the the DHD to dial an address for them to escape to. Fear grabbed her briefly when she realized that her military commander was going to place all their futures int he hands of a boy who couldn't be more than 12.

"I'm Jinto!" she heard the dark haired boy call out as she protested Sheppard's actions.

"She's pleased to meet you," Sheppard said quickly. But before he could even get Jinto up to the DHD, the city shuddered so violently that she nearly lost her balance. As she turned to tell John it was now or never, the city began to rise out of the ocean and head towards the surface.

As she followed a small group of others out onto a balcony to over look the city everything fled from her head except for what she was seeing. A city full of alien looking buildings that glinted cheerfully in the sun, water still dripping off many of the out croppings and flowing from the lower laying areas. It was breath taking and everyone around her seemed to realize that. As she leaned over slightly to see just how high above everything they were and Rodney began to yell out that systems were stabilizing the last remaining thoughts of leaving fled.

first time the IOA seriously question her command decisions, she really wanted to leave, if only to make those morons shut up and leave her the hell alone. If she had made the decision to enter an alliance with the Wraith without the consent of the IOA, she wouldn't have been surprised, but they had given her their blessing and she had gone ahead with the plan. Hell, the Air Force was ready to squash the whole alliance plan until the IOA spoke up and insisted.

But things had definitely gone SNAFU, as John said. Now, the Wraith were on their way to Earth and she was sitting in the SGC with a headache the size of Texas, waiting for a bunch of bureaucrats who had no idea what life was really like out in the Pegasus Galaxy to decide her fate, the fate of her city and the fate of everyone in that city. A bunch of spineless cowards were debating her future because a decision they had endorsed had come back to bite them on their collective asses.

So, here she sat, doing paperwork while her people back on Atlantis were struggling to recover from the last attack and the people here were bracing for a pending attack. It wasn't fair. She had spoken to General Landry about the situation and to Richard Woolsey about it and she had come to a decision about things: Fuck'em.

They had gotten themselves, and her, into this mess and when it didn't go according to plan, they were blaming everyone but themselves. Well, fine then, if they wanted her gone, she'd go. It was going to kill her to leave Atlantis and all her friends behind, but life was too short to be constantly dealing with the IOA's bullshit. Her one consolation in all of this was that she knew she was doing the right thing. She was going down fighting to not only save the expedition but to save Earth and all the citizens that were ignorant to the wonders and dangers that existed out in the universe and beyond.

A few hours later, this decision wouldn't really matter though. The Wraith ship would be destroyed and she would be reinstated as commander of Atlantis and life would continue on, much as it always had.

She still wanted to knock together the heads of the IOA members though.

Weir didn't give up her hopes of going back to Atlantis until she had been back on Earth for nearly 3 weeks. It was then that she began disappearing into her memoirs, ignoring the phone calls and emails from her friends and ordering far more take out than she ever had before in her life.

As week 3 slid into week 4, she stopped bothering to change out of her pyjamas. No one was going to see her anyway, so what did it matter if she sat around in worn out sweats and t-shirts instead of casual skirts and flowy tops?

Week 5 and 6 were starting to blur together before Carson showed up and barged into her apartment, offering her the first human contact she'd had in weeks. Before she realized what was going on, Elizabeth found herself in a restaurant with Carson, John and Rodney, listening to them complain about life and she couldn't help but smile behind her wine glass. Things really didn't change as much as she thought. Sure, they were much further from each other than they had been on Atlantis and she didn't see them all every day, but when they came back together, things slid back into their familiar routing, like they had never really been apart at all. Change a sentence of two and Rodney was complaining about the techs on Atlantis, touching things they shouldn't be, about a lack of equipment and wasn't it inconvenient that they couldn't use the worm hole for supply shipments?

Of course, as she started to make excuses about turning in to sleep, because she was actually sleeping quite a bit these days, her boys started giving her a hard time. John and Carson stopped as soon as she mentioned having quite a bit of sleep to catch up on. If anyone knew how much time Elizabeth had spent not sleeping on Atlantis, it was her doctor and second in command. Rodney, oblivious as always, continued to give her reasons as to why she should stay up with them. Just as John was about to tell Rodney to can it, their cell phones started going off and she saw that NORAD, the accepted cell phone code for the SGC, was calling.

Maybe she wouldn't turn her back on the world just yet. . .

time, she really was packing it in. Weir had been fighting it for years but the last few months had just been unbearable. He seemed to know everything about her, be everywhere she was and she couldn't stand it any more. She just needed some time to herself, just a moment to catch her breath and firm up her mental walls, but he would just not give it to her.

She knew what he was trying to do and she was positive that she didn't want anything at all to do with it.

At least she was pretty sure.

Or at least she thought that she was pretty sure.

She sighed heavily as she saw him approach her in the darkened mess hall and she willed him to not notice her, that he'd turn around and leave but she didn't have that kind of luck. That man really did have built in radar for finding her.

"Elizabeth," he said as he slid smoothly into the seat across from her.

"Colonel," she said, arching her eyebrow slightly and trying to keep her distance from him.

"Say yes," he said, not hesitating or engaging in any of the usual pleasantries. "You know you want to, the only difference is that the whispers would stop. You're always telling me that you hate being the source of rumours."

"John. . ."

"Elizabeth. . ." he replied before he stood and leaned over the table, capturing her lips in a kiss. "Say yes," he whispered to her, his face mere inches from hers. Elizabeth sighed heavily as she felt her walls finally crumble and her self control pack it in and leave.

"Fine," she finally muttered and he smiled as he saw the look of defeat cross her face. "I'll move in with you."


End file.
